


Family

by CommanderTeatime



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Not Beta Read, R Plus L Equals J, The Big Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 02:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14369451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderTeatime/pseuds/CommanderTeatime
Summary: Jon returns to Winterfell with Daenerys where Sam breaks the news to him. Surrounded by the ghosts of the Starks, Jon copes.





	Family

Jon was very rarely caught off guard like this. When he was, he was usually quick on his feet, movements ahead of where his thoughts were. It was all very impulsive, but it kept him alive. His mind knew what to do before his thoughts could put words to concepts and movements. He was smart that way, trusting his own instincts, going in before thinking. He found himself usually watching his body react to the danger that usually surrounded him.

Some considered it foolish, to let instincts take over. It was primal and uncivilized to fight before calculating risk and advantages, but it had kept him alive on the Wall and beyond it.

But for the first time in his life, Jon was completely and utterly mindless. He stayed deadly still and watched as the small flakes fell from the dark clouds above Winterfell. The snow wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, a blizzard was in the air.

Snow.

He curled in closer to himself, hugging his legs close to his chest as he pressed himself against the back of the large, ancient tree. Jon closed his eyes and let his head rest on top of his arms in a small attempt to disappear through the sacred wood into the land of prayers and answers.

He had taken his vows by the Old Gods, the gods that Eddard Stark had raised him with. He went to the Weirwood tree to take his Night’s Watch vows, followed by his best friend Sam. Sam, the one who had told him, the one who had smuggled a wildling girl far south to Winterfell. So far south… further south than Jon could have managed.

Jon couldn’t help but think of Ygritte every time he saw Gilly, sometimes he was reminded of her when he saw Sansa’s red hair, when he saw Tormund’s smile. Ygritte felt like she was made of dreams, right on the cusp of his memory, so close to reach out for, but so far from sleep that he was already forgetting what she felt like, what she talked like, what she laughed like…

He thought he had been done mourning. She had put three arrows in him, she had killed many of his comrades. He knew he was supposed to feel some sort of relief when she died there in his arms, her dark eyes watering with tears, her body shaking as she fought death with every breath, her soft voice reminding him with that familiar taunt…

_“You know nothing, Jon Snow.”_

He felt his own breathing shake.

It was true, truer than he had expected. How could he have missed it? How could he have missed his own parentage when it was right in front of him the whole time?

Sam had taken him below to the crypts to tell him. He had insisted on standing in front of Lyanna’s memorial, her kind smile gazing down at them as they stood in the light of the flickering candles and offerings. Jon had just assumed that he wanted to stay close to the exit of the crypts, or that he was too afraid to venture further into the darkness.

While Sam was preparing himself to tell him, Jon stood there and watched the statue of Aunt Lyanna as though she was going to move. It was impossible to look at her stone memorial and not reminisce about better times when he would play in the crypts as a child.

He could remember one time where he had covered himself in flour from the kitchens and hid in the darkness behind Lyanna’s statue, jumping out at Bran and the girls when Robb brought them down far enough. Jon could feel the vibrations of their screams from the stone, the sound of Robb’s laugh and his own…

He turned around, facing Eddard Stark’s memorial, and beside him, the newly placed statuary of Lady Catelyn and Robb. He swallowed thickly and tried not to think about them. He could feel their immortal stone eyes watching him and judging his actions as he stood there with his best friend. As a Snow, did he really have the right to stand where he stood?

Sam’s voice shook the entire time as he stumbled through his words. He talked about how Bran was the three-eyed raven, what it meant, but Jon still didn’t entirely understand. Nevertheless, he hung on Sam’s words like he had on the Wall and tried not to think about the ghosts among them. It was only when Sam reached up to touch Jon’s shoulder that he realized something was wrong. Sam’s eyes were worried, his lips quivering slightly more than usual.

“Jon, I… I don’t know how to tell you this, but, I was looking through an old record, the records of High Septon Maynard… he annulled a marriage between Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell.” He said simply, as though his words were supposed to mean something to Jon.

Jon waited for Sam to continue, knowing there was more to it than just the mumblings of some old man in a book.

“Prince Rhaegar Targaryen married Lyanna Stark in Dorne, a secret ceremony.” Sam stuttered through his words with more anxiety than before. Jon wasn’t exactly sure how much longer he could put up with Sam’s nervous ticks, but he stood there, looking at the burly man as he recounted someone else’s words. “Bran saw… Bran saw Lyanna, dying in childbirth, handing off her son to Lord Eddard Stark.” Sam’s grip on Jon’s arm tightened. “Jon…”

He could feel his heart pulsing in his ears, his head beginning to swim. His mind raced, but was empty, devoid of thoughts. He had no idea how to react, what to say, what to do.

“She told Lord Eddard Stark to save you… that… that you’re a Targaryen, Jon. Your real name… your given name…”

Jon felt as though he was standing in the center of a thundercloud. “No,” He pulled away from Sam, shaking with an energy he didn’t know what to do with. He took a few steps back, away from the statue that almost seemed to reach for him. He turned to the statues of Lord Eddard Stark, Lady Catelyn, Robb, and the spot beside him for Rickon…

Jon could feel the tears beginning to swarm the corners of his eyes, stinging and burning his face as though they were made of acid. He turned his back on them, all of them, and disappeared into the dark.

 

* * *

  
It was never hard to hide from the Starks.

Being unnoticed was Jon’s specialty as a Snow. He always used to hide out in the broken tower, the one that overlooked the wilderness on one side, the First Keep on the other. He would sneak up as high as he felt comfortable and hid near a window looking out of Winterfell to the east.

This time, Jon had no need for the broken tower. He had no need to hide amongst the crumbled ruins of Winterfell’s history where he went to hide from who he thought his father was, where he went to hide from Lady Catelyn, sometimes Robb, Theon, and the rest of his siblings.

No.

They weren’t his siblings anymore. They were just… Starks.

Jon had never considered himself a Stark. He had wanted to for the longest time. He had always wanted for Lord Eddard Stark to ask the King to legitimize him with a simple royal decree and a few signatures, but he knew better than to hope for such silly things.

He rested his head against the back of the Weirwood, thinking back to how his father, no, his uncle, had sat against the opposite side. He had never seen his uncle pray to the Old Gods, but he had seen him sit there, staring into the reflecting pool as though it held the answers to all of his problems. Jon had assumed that was what praying was for the longest time.

He understood now, why he had never seen Lord Eddard praying to the Gods. He could feel the same abandonment, the feeling of having no one left, of having to carry a lie for the rest of his life. Lord Eddard hadn’t prayed because the Gods had turned their backs against him, they had left his prayers unaddressed, unanswered.

Jon wondered if his mother had prayed for him, if he was the answer to her prayers despite being the cause of her death. Had she wanted him? Had his father wanted him? If Aerys Targaryen had remained king, if Rhaegar hadn’t been slain in battle… would he have been loved? Would his mother have kissed his cuts and bruises from sparring like Lady Catelyn had done for Robb? Would his father have taught him how to rule like how Robb had taught him?

He yearned for what could have been, the acceptance that he had seen the Stark children receive from their parents since the day he was brought to Winterfell, but sitting against the Weirwood tree with tears still in his eyes… all he wanted was to disappear.

He didn’t want to be a Targaryen, the family that had ruled the kingdom for thousands of years through fear and bloodshed, relying on the force and mystical power of dragons to move the seven kingdoms to loyalty. There was a reason they had gone mad, there was a reason they were dead.

He couldn’t help but think about the Starks, how they had once rebelled against the kings, creating the legendary King in the North that Robb had become once the Lannisters beheaded Lord Eddard Stark. Jon had never formally accepted the title, but he hadn’t refused it either.

When he was younger he had dreamed of being a Stark. He always wanted to play the Lord of Winterfell, the Warden of the North when he would play games with Robb. He had made the mistake once of vocally declaring himself Lord of Winterfell after Robb had playfully slaughtered him. Robb had insisted that Jon would never be Warden of the North, that he was a bastard and bastards had no importance. He had felt the sting of Lady Catelyn’s words coming through Robb’s mouth, it was like the sting of a whip across his face.

“Blood of my blood.”

Jon nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned back and looked around the side of the Weirwood to find Daenerys standing at the end of the pathway.

“You aren’t happy.” She said simply, closing the distance between them as she clumsily made her way through the snow in thicker clothes than the ones she had brought with her. Jon could tell they were Sansa’s just by looking at her, the fabric dragging on the ground an apparent sign of the two girls’ height difference.

Jon fought the instinct to sigh. He stared out into the Godswood at all of the frost covered plants and the memories of ruining his father’s, or rather his uncle’s meditation. He didn’t know what to say to the Dragon Queen at his side, how to face her, so he didn’t.

“I’ve lived my entire life dreaming of the Iron Throne, of Westeros, and of my family—their legacy, the bloodline.” She leaned against the side of the tree, looking towards the wall to avoid his occasional glances while she talked, filling the uncomfortable silence between them. “My brother, Viserys, wanted to take the throne for himself with a horde of Dothraki. He dreamed that the people of Westeros were drinking toasts to him, to my family, our honor, hoping to rightfully restore our claim to the throne.”

Her use of the word our struck him like a lashing. Jon remained quiet, unsure of what to say to her. John wanted solitude, even from Daenerys and from the ghosts of Winterfell. He wondered what Robb would think of the scene—Jon, sitting in the snow contemplating his life as a Targaryen; Daenerys Targaryen standing beside him talking to him about her childhood memories and aspirations.

“He was foolish to believe it.” She said with a small smile, a laugh almost escaping through her lips. She glanced over to Jon for just a moment, a second that he wouldn’t have caught if he hadn’t been watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“I never imagined the throne would fall to me.” She said after a few moments, her eyes moving from the tree line down to him. He looked away the moment he saw the lavender of her irises. “And now, the throne has fallen to you, Jon.”

Jon’s response was simple. “I don’t want a throne.” His arms tightened around himself. “I don’t want the North, I don’t want Westeros. I’m not a Stark, all these years I just thought I was some bastard Snow, and now I’m not.” He fought against the shaking to his tone, but it was still noticeable. “I’m not anything, Daenerys.”

Jon could feel her glance on him, her uncertainty hanging in the air while she tried to figure out her next words carefully. He had put her in an uncomfortable position. He knew Daenerys enough to know that she never really considered her actions before she did them. She was walking on cracking ice, predicting her next moves as though he was going to break the frozen floor and drag her down with him.

“You’re something, Jon Sn--,” Daenerys stopped herself. “Sorry.”

Her mistake was enough to make him smile just a little.

Daenerys smiled back, her smile wider and full of hope. “You’re something to me, Jon.” She told him, unsure of how to completely phrase her thoughts now that she had slipped up, nearly calling him a Snow. “You’re brave, selfless, a brilliant leader…” She paused again, sinking down lower before she slipped into the snow, falling on her butt gracefully. “Your family loves you.”

Jon closed his eyes and exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “They’re not my family.”

“Do you love them?”

Jon didn’t answer, but they both knew he did, so Daenerys continued.

“Unconditionally?”

“Yes.”

She turned to him, peeking at him out from the hood of her cloak. “They’re your family, Jon.”

“Cousins.” He said simply.

“Siblings.” Daenerys corrected. “Your sisters know you better than you think.” She leaned out from behind the tree and looked over towards the entrance to the Godswood. She pretended that she couldn’t see the shadow of Arya Stark as she listened in on their conversation.

Jon’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

The Dragon Queen stared at the snow by her feet, straightening out her skirts. “I know the Starks don’t have much of a history of… this.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, a word that might scare Jon away into another hiding place, possibly one that his sisters didn’t know of.

“They do.”

Daenerys looked over to him, a slight burning flush on her skin. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling, why her face burned, but it didn’t feel sinister. “They do,” She repeated softly. “Well, the Targaryens… they do, too.”

Jon closed his eyes and leaned back against the Weirwood again. He exhaled a breath he had been holding for far too long. “I… I don’t know, I don’t know what you expect, my queen.”

“Expect?”

“What you expect from me.” Jon added.

She thought about it for a few seconds, her thoughts moving almost as fast as her heartbeat. “I… I don’t expect anything from you, Jon.” Her voice was a little sterner than she meant and Jon opened his eyes at her tone. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. If you don’t want anything to do with your blood, that’s your decision.”

Jon was silent.

“I should probably go back to the Great Hall before Tyrion realizes I’m not with Sansa.” She got up, brushing the snow off of her long skirts before she left him to himself.

He contemplated her words, the meaning behind them. Daenerys had come all the way from Pentos to take back the Iron Throne for herself, but as she had pointed out, it didn’t truly belong to her. It belonged to him.

The thought of sitting in the cold throne made of dead men’s swords made Jon’s stomach twist. He had grown up beside Robb, listening to Robb’s dreams of becoming a king despite their family’s loyalty to the House of Baratheon. Robb had taken classes that Jon wasn’t allowed to attend—classes that taught him advanced military theory, economics, other kingly duties. When they were younger, Robb used to let Jon sneak into his bedroom and sit on the floor as Robb told Jon everything he had learned, but after a while it all stopped.

Robb knew that Jon wasn’t leadership material. They both knew it. Jon decided it was best to look up to Uncle Benjen than the famous Targaryen kings and queens of their bedtime stories.

Daenerys Targaryen was one of those queens. She intimidated him, not because she truly scared him, but because she was so… free. Daenerys Targaryen had freed thousands of people, and at the same time, she had freed herself. She had no family ties, her family was gone, her legacy was her own. She was queen and she could do as she liked whenever she liked.

Jon wondered if Daenerys had always been so strong-willed or if it came with years of dreaming.

He was sure that he had explained to her that he didn’t want the Iron Throne, or to take part in the Targaryen legacy. He was almost certain that those words had come out of his mouth, but he still couldn’t help but wonder if she now saw him as a threat.

Jon wished things had stayed simple. He wished to go back to the Wall with Sam, to have an unexplained, undying hatred for the wildlings that had been passed down south of the Wall for generations. He wanted to be arrogant of the winter and its threat. Most importantly, he wanted to be Jon Snow again.

“I like her.”

Jon tried to hide his surprise. He should’ve known that Arya was nearby, watching him. Ever since he had returned home she had always been close, never letting him out of her sight. He found it kind of endearing. He gave her a sheepish look, almost unsure of what she was talking about.

“I can tell you like her too.” Arya stood where Daenerys had sat down, leaning her back against the Weirwood tree as she scanned the horizon like some sort of predator looking for a sign of prey. “She probably likes you too.”

He was quiet, nearly sure that Arya’s observation was wrong. Daenerys couldn’t like another threat that came between her and her throne. Their actions on the boat were ignorant, innocent, and filled Jon with a sense of warmth, but underlying dread. It was wrong to feel what he felt for her.

“Sam told me and Sansa.” Arya told him, nudging him slightly with her foot. “I told her that you wouldn’t want anything to do with King’s Landing, that she shouldn’t get her heart set on taking it.”

“King’s Landing is Daenerys’s.”

Arya looked down at him. “Does she know that?”

Jon nodded.

“I never heard you tell her that.” Arya’s voice was almost emotionless and it ran chills up and down Jon’s spine. He wondered what had happened to her since Lord Eddard Stark’s death that had turned her from the small girl holding Needle in the darkness of the stables into the lethal woman that could spar as equals with Brienne of Tarth.

“What did you hear?” Jon didn’t look up at her.

She sighed. “I heard you tell her that you don’t want anything to do with her.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Jon finally looked up at her, looking into her dark Stark eyes, her look of scrutiny just like her father’s. He turned away, unsure of how to continue their squabble of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. He wasn’t sure how his words had gotten so turned around in his mind that Arya had heard him tell Daenerys to leave. He had only told her that he didn’t want the Iron Throne, that he didn’t want to be a Targaryen.

“Do you love her?” Arya asked, her eyes wandering from their surroundings back to Jon.

He knew the answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Saying it made it real, made everything real. He wanted it all to be a dream, to never think or dream of love ever again.

“I don’t understand why you can’t tell her.” Arya huffed. “She let one of her children die to save you up there, north of the Wall, and you can’t even tell her that you love her.”

Jon felt something in him snap. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was venomous, shaking with anger that he had anticipated. “You don’t understand what’s at stake. Daenerys does.”

“Why don’t I understand? Because I’m just some little girl to you?” Arya’s voice was contained and cold, as though his words weren’t enough to rise the anger out of her. “Just some little girl that you take pity on.”

“You haven’t been there, you’ve never been north of the Wall. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen, you haven’t seen what Daenerys’s has seen. There are thousands of them, marching on us, right now. They’re going to murder thousands, maybe millions. Women, children, the old, the sick, they’ll show no mercy.

Arya frowned. “Just because I haven’t seen any of it doesn’t mean I don’t believe you, doesn’t mean that Daenerys’s sacrifice was any less. She lost a dragon, one of the only three dragons in the world is dead because of you, Jon, and you can’t accept it.” Arya’s voice was stronger now, the anger beginning to leak through her toughened demeanor.

Jon’s anger silenced him.

“She loves you enough to sacrifice a child for you, and you tell her that you don’t want anything to do with her.”

“I’m giving her the Iron Throne, isn’t that enough?”

Arya looked at him, her eyes wild and full of spark. “No. It’s not.”

“All Daenerys wants is the Iron Throne.” Jon felt the need to suddenly explain Daenerys and her actions to Arya, just like the days when he would explain father’s politics. “She traveled from Pentos and all of the Free Cities, she’s the Khaleesi of a Dothraki horde. She freed thousands of people, raised armies, all of it was for the Iron Throne.”

She sat down quickly, almost as though her feet had come out from underneath her. She looked at him, her eyes analyzing every single aspect of him as he stared back, slightly jarred by her sudden movements. “Jon Snow, you are so dense.”

He continued to stare. “I’m aware.”

“If you’re aware then why are you hiding in the Godswood? Why did you tell her to leave?”

Jon frowned. “I didn’t.”

“You are and did. Jon Snow, Jon Targaryen, Jon Stark, whatever the hell you are, Jon, you are so stupid. She doesn’t care about the Iron Throne right now. She cares about you. Why do you think she would come out here and freeze? She could have burned King’s Landing to the ground, but she didn’t because you need Cersei to help fight the Wights.”

“She didn’t burn King’s Landing because Tyrion told her—”

“She didn’t burn King’s Landing because she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to stay in Dragonstone, she didn’t want you to die, she didn’t want any of this. She did it because she wanted to. She sacrificed one of her dragons because saving you was more important.”

Jon was lost for words. He had assumed that Daenerys was calculated, but unbalanced, that her actions came from a place of fury and recklessness when instead they came from love. He turned away from Arya and looked back out to the sacred grove.

“She loves you. Do you love her?”

He only nodded.

“Tell her.”

His limbs felt heavy and numb. He stood, fixing his cloak and brushing the snow off of himself before he offered Arya a hand up. She took it, but got up seamlessly from where she was sitting without relying on him. He watched as she gave him a slight smile, then disappeared back through the grove the way Daenerys had gone.

 

* * *

 

Jon pretended not to feel the eyes of Winterfell on his back as he walked out of the Godswood and into the Great Hall. He still felt like a Snow walking down the stretch of floor that lead him to the platformed table where the Starks had sat for so many years. He gave a small smile to Sansa as she stood on that platform, towering over him as Lady of Winterfell.

“I’ve been thinking about what Bran said.” Sansa moved around the platform to the main floor and met Jon on the main floor. “I think it’s best we keep your parentage a secret. The Northmen wouldn’t take too kindly to a Targaryen being King of the North.”

“Sansa,”

She gave him a skeptical look, prepared to fight with him if he said the wrong thing.

“I think we have more important things to worry about.”

Her look didn’t leave her face. “I mean, I suppose so, but you can’t forget the North, Jon. After this fight against the white walkers Cersei isn’t going to let us prepare.”

“If we survive.” He looked past her, looking for any sign of Daenerys or where Daenerys could have disappeared to. He found Tyrion sitting at the end of the table, a glass of wine in front him alongside a good, thick book. He wondered if Sansa and Tyrion might have made some sort of amends.

“If we survive.” Sansa repeated, knowing that her argument was dead where it stood. Jon had other things on his mind and he wasn’t in the mood to debate with her about the future of the North and its people. She backed away from Jon, knowing that he was on his way to see Daenerys. “I gave her my old room.”

Jon was slightly taken aback that Sansa knew exactly what he was trying to do. He gave her a light nod rather than spending more time bickering with her. He wandered down the hall to his left but slowed once he reached the hall of his childhood.

Sansa had tried to convince him before to take the Lord’s quarters because he was Lord of Winterfell now, but he had insisted that Sansa take it. He remained in his own room, the farthest and smallest room, the room of a bastard. He walked past his own quarters to Bran’s, Rickon’s, Robb’s, then Arya’s and Sansa’s. He stopped outside of Sansa’s old bedroom and waited, unsure of what to say.

Could he just knock on the door and say he didn’t mean it? Could he just simply tell her that he didn’t realize what he was saying? That he hadn’t put everything together mentally, that he hadn’t thought about anything other than the imminent danger threatening them all?

He let his hand rest on the wood of the door for a second before knocking twice and taking a step back.

“Enter.” Her voice said from the other side of the door.

Jon carefully opened the door as though it would fall off the hinges if he didn’t do it so carefully. “Your grace,”

She was seated at the desk in the corner, writing something, but the moment she heard his voice, she stood and moved whatever she had written out of view. “I think we’re past titles,”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Daenerys was quiet, almost as though she was patiently waiting for him to take back everything he had said in the Godswood. She anxiously kept her hands in front of herself, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her dress sleeves, her hair still tied back in so many intricate braids. The thought of taking them out, feeling her long hair against his rough fingers…

Jon felt his face turn red. “I wanted to apologize, about what I said in the Godswood.”

“Apologize for what?” She asked and Jon wasn’t sure if she was honestly unsure, or if she just wanted to hear him admit his errors.

“When I said that I didn’t want anything to do with… with our family and the bloodline.” His face burned a little hotter and he almost looked away from her beautiful, hypnotic eyes. “Daenerys—,”

She held up a hand to stop him, then closed the space in between them. She looked up at him, studying his features. “I’ve decided that you have the right to call me Dany.”

He chuckled softly and brushed back a strand of her light hair. “We can’t let the Northmen know.” His voice was softer now and he wasn’t sure if it was what he had originally intended, to be caught in her room like this, his heart pounding against his ribcage as she looked at him.

Daenerys nodded. “So, you’ve decided to be a Snow?”

Jon was quiet for a moment. He put his hands on her arms and leaned in close, his lips brushing over hers. He kissed her and pulled away before she could ask him for more. “I’ve decided to be yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope this fit as well as I thought it did. I've been meaning to post this since the end of season 7.


End file.
